Recently, I found this little widget while answering a help question and it turned into a small bear hunting dependencies and compiling. It's a nice little app, though. It's very easy to set this up, now that the legwork is done (Many thanks to CraigEvil and TheGarage, both of whom helped out a lot when I was chasing dependencies and config syntax)

This is a PERFECT "first sourcebuild" for those of you who are thinking about trying out a source compiled program. This isn't a tutorial on compiling, though. I'm going to tell you how to get it done and set it up, but not WHY you do it, this way.

WHO WANTS THIS?

Anybody who wants a system wide, always on eq. Anybody who wants a player independent optional eq. Anybody who really likes CLI controlled applications.

WHO WILL NOT LIKE THIS?

People who who dislike working in the terminal. People who dislike spending time to load software. If you live in synaptic, this is probably not for you.

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

Lenny (or newer) and an internet connection. You probably COULD use Etch, but I'm not promising it. You must have alsa installed and also alsa-utils. I haven't included these in the dependency installation. The other stuff should pull it in even if you don't have it.

WHAT EXACTLY IS ALSAEQUAL?

Alsaequal is a plugin utility to control frequency attenuation (it's an equalizer ) of audio input streams via alsa. It uses the LADSPA utilities library for audio processing. It's basically CLI based (although there's an available GUI DE front end). It can be made to sit in between any audio stream and Alsa, allowing you to "equalize" anything from AV multimedia to system bells.

You should not see any error messages at any point in this process. If you do, stop and then post the errors here. I think this will be painless, though. One other note: I compile exclusively as root. There's some controversy over doing this. You'll be fine as long as you follow the directions.

First, fire up your terminal emulator and become root. Then, make sure you're in your home directory like this:

Again, the 'pwd' just tells me which directory I'm in. If you're not in your $HOME directory (polaris, for me) you need to 'cd' into it. BTW thanks to mzilikazi for pointing out that taking this step as root results in an .asoundrc file owned BY root. That does us no good at all. Make sure you're not root before proceeding.

This will open a blank screen. Paste the following code into it (you can push down on the mouse scroll wheel to paste a selection into nano or use the EDIT/PASTE menu from your terminal emulator (not nano))

# pcm.equal { # Or if you want the equalizer to be your # default soundcard uncomment the following # line and comment the above line. pcm.!default { type plug; slave.pcm plugequal; }

Then use [ctrl]-O to save it (you will notice an output path at the bottom of the nano screen when you press [ctrl]-O you need to hit [return] at that point) and then [ctrl]-X to exit nano

NOTE: you may wonder why you don't see the file listed when you type 'ls'. This is because all files that start with '.' are normally invisible. These files hold configuration information for various user customizable utilities like X, gnome, and, in our case, alsa. To see the hidden files in any directory, you must type 'ls -a'

Nice! I hope this will soon hit the Debian repositories. Who knows how often I've resumed and postponed the search for a systemwide equaliser..

By the way, the author mentions that this is actually a generic realtime LADSPA plugin controller for ALSA, and there is a great possibility that the other LADPSA plugins will work as well. Totally kick-ass .. gotta try that out when time is abundant.

Actually, combing through the LADSPA utilities, in general, leads me to believe that WRITING an eq utility in ladspa is pretty simple. Not about to give a tutorial, but I see no reason why any of the LADSPA utilities would fail in debian.

for as long as the world remains. for as long as time remains. so, too, will I remain. To serve. To help. And to make my contribution. Also, never forget our family at debianuserforums.org If we can't solve your problem, they probably can.

If anybody following my original directions has permission problems reading .asoundrc, use the command above, replacing "polaris96" with your user name. Apologies to all. As we become set in our ways, we often forget personal quirks of methodology. Problem is, this is EXACTLY the kind of thing that will piss off a "cookbooker" when trying to make the app work. My bad

So far as "check install" goes, I don't really know anything about it. I started compiling code a long time ago in system v UNIX. Check Install probably is much better, but I'm aware of the headaches associated with "old fashioned" compiling and I'm staying with it. Newer people SHOULD take mzilikazi's advice.

This is small enough that you might even consider building it as a deb package. That would be REALLY slick and it's not too hard. There's a very good tutorial in theis forum's "how to" section. I'll get the link sometime soon and post it here.

for as long as the world remains. for as long as time remains. so, too, will I remain. To serve. To help. And to make my contribution. Also, never forget our family at debianuserforums.org If we can't solve your problem, they probably can.

for as long as the world remains. for as long as time remains. so, too, will I remain. To serve. To help. And to make my contribution. Also, never forget our family at debianuserforums.org If we can't solve your problem, they probably can.

Pulseaudio is a pretty decent system, but, like so many of the available apps in the LINUX world, many of its features consist of "reiventing the wheel"

Like you, I tried and then ditched pulseaudio. I do wish more people were working in ALSA, though. It's great software, and we should reach its full potential before we throw it away.

for as long as the world remains. for as long as time remains. so, too, will I remain. To serve. To help. And to make my contribution. Also, never forget our family at debianuserforums.org If we can't solve your problem, they probably can.